Science, Tech, Math › Animals & Nature Barnum Brown Share Flipboard Email Print Bettmann / Getty Images Animals & Nature Dinosaurs Paleontologists Basics Carnivores Dinosaurs & Birds Herbivores Marine Reptiles Prehistoric Mammals Amphibians Birds Habitat Profiles Mammals Reptiles Wildlife Conservation Insects Marine Life Forestry Evolution View More By Bob Strauss Science Writer B.S., Cornell University Bob Strauss is a science writer and the author of several books, including "The Big Book of What, How and Why" and "A Field Guide to the Dinosaurs of North America." our editorial process Bob Strauss Updated March 11, 2018 Barnum Brown Born/Died 1873-1963 Nationality American Dinosaurs Named Ankylosaurus, Corythosaurus, Leptoceratops, Saurolophus About Barnum Brown Named after, but not related to, P.T. Barnum (of traveling circus fame), Barnum Brown had a flamboyant personality to match. For much of his long life, Brown was the chief fossil hunter for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and he participated in a huge number of digs, including one that unearthed the very first Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in southeastern Montana (Brown, unfortunately, didn’t get to name his find; that honor went to museum president Henry Osborn). Despite the large number of fossil finds to his credit, mostly in Montana and Canada's Alberta province, Brown is remembered more as an energetic, tireless, well-traveled digger than as a published paleontologist (though he did write some influential papers). His techniques seem to have matched his personality: in the early 20th century, his preferred method for finding fossils was to blow up huge tracts of land with dynamite, scour the rubble for bones, and cart the resulting finds back to base camp on horse-drawn carriages. Befitting his name, Barnum Brown had his share of eccentricities, many of them recounted in a memoir published by his wife, I Married a Dinosaur. For publicity purposes, he insisted on being photographed at his fossil digs wearing an oversized fur coat, and he claimed to work as an "intelligence asset" for the U.S. government during World War I and World War II and as a corporate spy for various oil companies during his trips abroad. He was referred to by his closest friends as "Mr. Bones."